Those little chubby fingers fumbling with the smallish buttons of my brown sweater. You learning to become big. So much faster than I remember with your bigger brothers. Because of your brothers. In a hurry to catch up.

You sat in my lap. "To keep you warm," you tell me as you work. "Come on, come on," you urge as you patiently push the buttons through the small holes. Eyes sparkling with concentration. A bit of tongue on your lip. Tell tale signs of hard work in our home.

But you never break with frustration. Just patience and the need to conquer this small achievement. I marvel and watch you learn. Loving these quiet, important moments.

These are the moments that tug at my heart. When I gasp at the thought, the miracle of three. That these moments might never have happened. But they have. Are. And will. Surreal. And so precious. I cling to these tiny minutes that might pass unnoticed elsewhere. But not here. In my heart.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

My big boy is in middle school this year. It's so very difficult to imagine that he has grown this big in a blink of an eye.

(At his locker during orientation.... Learning to use a combination lock.)

He is now in his second week of school. Last week he found himself in general music instead of band. A trip to the office and he is now in the correct class.

At the end of that first week he was complaining about his math class. How doing addition and subtraction were boring. On Tuesday he brought home his math homework.... Multiplication.

2 x 9.... 1x7.... For a boy who got 99% on his report card in math last year, this looks a little boring. So I called the guidance department just to check.... And found he was in the wrong math class.

Trip #2 to the guidance department, and he is now in the advanced math. Yesterday he came home happy to say that he is now deep in equations with parenthesis and exponents.

So glad he loves middle school and that he is thriving. New friends. New challenges. He was so very ready for this next step.